Intro

• Ethnic Gloss


  Using simplistic labels to describe ethnocultural groups like American Indians, Asian Americans, Hispanics, and African Americans
• Ethnic Gloss


  Inferring that all members of an ethnic group share common culture-related characteristics
• Historical Context


  • Historical events profoundly influence people's lives
  • Factors like cultural shifts, economic changes, and technological advancements shape individuals' experiences and development
• Normative Age-Graded Influences


  • Events or experiences expected at certain ages like learning to walk, starting school, and retirement
  • Tied to biological or developmental processes
• Normative History-Graded Influences


  • Events common to people of a particular generation due to historical or societal context
  • Examples include wars, economic recessions, and cultural movements
• Historical Generation


  • Individuals born and lived during the same historical period
  • Share common experiences, events, and cultural influences
• Cohort


  • Group of individuals sharing a particular characteristic or experience based on factors like age or life experiences
  • Used to study trends, behaviors, and attitudes within specific groups
• Nonnormative Influence


  • Personal Experiences: Unique or unexpected influences like car accidents, winning the lottery, or overcoming serious illnesses
  • Individual Circumstances: Growing up in a single-parent household, being a gifted child, or having a chronic illness
• Imprinting


  Instinctive learning during a critical period where a young animal forms attachment to the first moving object seen
• Plasticity


  • Range of modifiability of performance
  • Brain molding through experience
• Scientific Law


  Describes what happens (e.g., E=mc²)
• Scientific Theory


  Explains why or how it happens
• Hypothesis


  Possible explanations for phenomena used to predict research outcomes
• Independent Variable (IV)


  • Also called exposure, control, explanatory, or manipulated variable
  • Variable that is changed
• Dependent Variable (DV)


  • Also called outcome, controlled, explained, or dependent variable
  • Variable affected by the change
• Mechanistic Model


  • Views human development as predictable responses to stimuli
  • Example: Baby learning to walk through muscle conditioning
• Organismic Model


  • Views human development as internally initiated by an active organism in qualitatively different stages
  • Example: Baby learning to walk due to intrinsic desire to explore
• Quantitative Change


  Changes in physical size, strength, and cognitive abilities that can be quantified
• Qualitative Change


  Transformations in how we think, feel, and interact with the world that are difficult to measure directly